Pinecil - cannot solder thick wires

[henfri]

Hi,

I am trying to solder a thick wire (of an XT60 cable to an ESC) using a BC2 tip
However, Pinecil never goes above 30W - except for the heating up phase - and that is insufficient... The pad and the cable is just pulling the heat away.
The displayed temperature remains at the set point or slightly below (390C).

It seems that the temperature sensor remains at the set point, while the tip is not warm enough.

Is there a way to improve that? It would already help me to set it to 40W.

I have confirmed in the PD Menu, that 3-21V @5A and 20V @5A are available.

Best regards,
Hendrik

[Ralim]

These soldering irons are temperature controlled.

So, it will increase its output power to maintain the setpoint temperature.
If you are seeing this sort of behaviour, where the temperature is being maintained it most likely means you have potentially poor coupling from the tip to what you are soldering.

You can think of it as you have resistances:

[Wire your soldering]-[Solder]-[Tip outer shell]-[Heating coil and temperature sensor]

Every - in that is a place where there is thermal resistance (opposition to the movement of heat).

Soldering irons regulate their power to control the temperature where its measured.

The resistance between the tip shell and coil is fairly small (its filled with a conductive ceramic cement).

Usually the biggest problems are between tip shell <-> solder <-> Wire.

Are you making sure to follow best practise such as getting as much of the tip in contact with the wire as possible (for BC2 tips use the side of the tip, not the very pointy tip).

You want as much area of the tip to have a solder bridge to your wire as possible, as thermal transfer is proportional to the area.

I have soldered XT90's with the BC2 and B2 tips without issue on a 45W USB-C supply on the Pinecil's.
(When I started all this stuff I was working on Drones as a day-job).

Also, tinning the wire and the XT connector first, to have a good solder layer will make things significantly easier than trying to tin and solder them together, as you can get a better angle for thermal conduction.

If this makes sense 😓 Happy to help more if I can.

But TL;DR, you dont "force power" You need to enable the heat to get from the tip to your wire, the more heat you can move the more power it will draw to compensate.

[henfri]

Hello,

thanks a lot for taking the time to explain.
I just tried again by not using the tip but the sides and failed again.
I then practiced ona 12AWG (~4mm²) Wire and lots of tin and when I hold the tip onto the upper side of the wire, the tin on the lower side does not get fluid but rather like gel - and that despite lots of tin between tip and wire.

To me it seems like there is lots of thermal resistance between Temperature Measurement and Tip...
The measured temperature (I set it high to 420) remained at 420 /-5

And that is why I wanted to force power - although I understand that it can also be problematic and Temperatures can quickly go out of bounds.

By the way: Currently I am only trying to solder the Capacitor. Not even the wire.

Greetings,
Hendrik

[Ralim]

This looks a lot like solder without flux; are you using flux core solder? What solder mix?

[henfri]

It says that it has 2% Flux...

The Mix ist Not written in it.
Temperature 280C

[Ralim]

Those solder blobs look like its not enough flux or dried out flux. Could also be a strange mix for lead-free but if the temperature is 280C that sounds like a lead based solder.

Normally connections that dull are from either too cold or not enough flux.

Can you share a photo of the roll? Where did you purchase it from?

Also have you changed any settings on the pinecil since you bought it?

[henfri]

By the way: the fact that the word Solder is printed SPLDER could have Made me suspicious

[henfri]

It is this one:
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0D99YKNYQ
Ok, if I read the reviews... That is very telling.

I may have changed some settings while browsing the menus tbh.

[Ralim]

Eugh yeah okay sadly might be the solder quality. Thats annoying.

All good on settings, only other thing I can think of is if you messed with Cold-Junction-Compensation (CJC) it might be worth a reset to make sure that wasn't setup wrong.

If you didnt touch that, then I would really only suspect the solder being not good quality 😢

[henfri]

Ok, I have ordered new Solder and I will do a factory reset. Thanks for your help!